[EAS] "extra" CAP test - Not in TN

[Ed Czarnecki]

David pretty well sums all this up.

There is no national (or "00000") FIPS code ... just doesn't exist in the
ANSI standard (INCITS 31.2009 replaced FIPS 6-4 for counties, and INCITS
38-2009 replaced FIPS 5-2 for state codes).

So for EAN messages, the convention is to use the Wash DC ANSI/FIPS code,
but the presence of the EAN event code instructs the EAS unit to override
the normal FIPS filter and relay the EAN.

For non-EAN messages (all the rest), there is a limit on how many FIPS codes
can be entered into any single EAS message (31 to be specific, as Dave
notes).  BTW, it is more than 50 state FIPS that need to be included ...
there are also the various territories (Wash DC, Puerto Rico, American
Samoa, Guam, etc...)

So it is not technically possible to put the FIPS for all 50 states plus the
various territories FIPS into one EAS message.  Hence the need to send out
multiple RWTs to different blocks of states.  

So, IPAWS chose to send them out grouped by time zone, which has its logic.
They could have alternatively chosen to group them by the 10 FEMA regions,
or maybe group by NCAA Division I regions, for fun ...

Edward Czarnecki, Ph.D.
  Senior Director - Strategy, Development & Regulatory Affairs
100 Housel Ave. | Lyndonville | NY | 14098
www.monroe-electronics.com
www.digitalalertsystems.com.

-----Original Message-----
From: eas-bounces at radiolists.net [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On
Behalf Of David Turnmire

On 10/11/2012 10:37 AM, Dave Kline wrote:
> ...
> I'm not sure of the logic behind sending to each time zone separately.
> Isn't it more work with greater chance of failure, than just sending one
to the whole country at the same time?
>
The logic is simple... it is IMPOSSIBLE under the existing EAS protocol to
send a single alert to 50 states (and a couple territories?).  The protocol
limits you to 31 FIPS codes.  Remember, this was created originally by NOAA
weather... sending RWTs to the entire country wasn't in their vision at the
time.  People living in small states
(geographically) may not have any reason to be intimately familiar with this
limitation, but at this moment I'm trying to figure out how to navigate it
in Idaho... which has 44 counties... 13 more than the EAS protocol can
handle.  Historically it hasn't been a big deal, we use the "All Idaho" FIPS
code for RMTS, etc, toss in a few other FIPS codes for counties in
neighboring states that we're responsible for, and we easily fit within the
31 FIPS code limit.  One region of our state had significant issues with
duplications of RMTs from a neighboring state, but under our legacy system,
everything got funneled through a couple LPs, so they just blocked the
redundant alerts and things worked tolerably well.

Then came CAP.  Which bypasses the LPs and delivers directly to the end
stations.  Which in general is a good thing, but now we were back to the
duplicate RMT issue.  In a smaller state we could have minimized the problem
by listing counties individually in the RMT and left out those counties that
were participating in the neighboring state's RMT that 
month.  But... we still had 34 counties to deal with.   Hmmmm

In any event, FEMA had a simple solution for their problem... send out
multiple RWTs.  But why stop at two alerts, each with 25?  For just a little
more effort, you could do it by time zone and thus for most people, the
local time was the same for everyone.  Of course, the "local time" was off a
bit for part of those states that occupied more than one time zone (such as
ours), but so what?  Its just a test.  And it was still predictable what
time it would (or should) be sent.

And you say what about national emergency alerts?  They use the EAN, which
doesn't use FIPS codes anyway.  And what about the mythical "All USA" FIPS
code?  Just that... a myth.  Some have proposed one, and that may well be a
good idea, but it is not currently part of the rules that we live by, so how
various EAS devices would respond to it is somewhat unpredictable.

So... while it is a favorite pass time of human beings the world over to
assume those in authority have _____ for brains.... sometimes they really do
have a good... or at least acceptable... reason for what they are doing.

Dave

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